Science is never wrong! You will hear this golden nugget tossed about like a salad throughout the movie but the science in this flick is shaky at best and let’snot talk about the sets and effects! Welcome to one of the worst (so that’ll be the best) disaster movies to grace my TV!
The Premise
Suddenly the Ice Age happens over 24 hours when the magnetic poles shifts and the climate drops to absolute zero leaving everyone bat the equator frozen to death. Science is never wrong.
The Disasters Faced
Copious amounts of polystyrene and where you think the audience isn’t looking, menacing white sheets. Gasp! The Horror!
The Execution
Ripped from The Day After Tomorrow, the opening is nigh on identical and that’s the best effects shot done in the first couple of minutes. From there we are introduced to poor Jeff Fahey whose found himself in yet another TV movie which he excels so well in. His B-Movie esque qualities endear him in all his roles. Erika Eleniak from Baywatch joins as the ladee whose busy falling for Fahey within twenty minutes of her husbands death, the husband sadly gets the most awfully cringe-worth CGI death I’ve seen for a while. Goodly!
Interestingly for a film that has a shoddy script, effects made on a clog string budget and some goofy science – the acting is quite passable. Everyone hams it up, especially our baddy who screams his way through the movie and his death is overdue and humorously stupid and elaborate. It’s like they spent all the budget in the opening few minutes which look so much more lush and expensive than the rest of the film put together.
The Effects
Awful. Plain and simple. In order to disguise their awfulness everytime something happens the screen is so dark and grainy you can’t really see the main effect anyway. The scenes of destruction are actually stills with snow effects on top and the one effect shot of a car being flipped open is laugh out loud funny. If you love dodgy effects, pick up this gem.
Why It’s Worth Watching
Jeff Fahey is always great and hams it up here. Aside from that its just seeing how hilarious all the cost cutting measures are, such as building a glacier out of white sheets and polystyrene. There’s a point in a cave where Jeff is crawling and you can see the sacks or pillows under the thin layer of “snow” moving about next to him. The Zero Room where you can survive absolute zero temperatures has no explanation to its working at all. They just shut the door and all is hunky diddly. There’s random script moments such as the student Phillip saying “You’re going to fast.” then saying “you’re too slow” and then “come on go faster” all in the space of about twenty seconds. I’m sure he actually fluffs some lines too as they don’t sit right with AJ’s retorts. All in all, great viewing!
Best Death
I do like the early on death of Dempsy who is splattered to death by a metal swing door – complete with bloodstain!
Favourite Character
There’s no character development at all in this film so Jeff wins, although Fred Ewanuiuk’s bumbling Phillip is a close second.
Weirdest Moment
The jarring science and everyone running around with a jacket on at -200 degrees aside, the TV reporter just needs a slap. However the weirdest moment is during an evacuation of a pool (oh yes, watch as people very slowly climb out and walk up some stairs to a shaking camera) the evacuation takes according to the clock ticking down to the polar shift about 2 hours and the same swimmer is still walking around the pool. I think they thought we wouldn’t remember the same people, places etc. Wrong!
Conclusion
Use Absolute Zero as a drinking game. A shot for every poor effect, every bungled science theory, everytime someone utters “science is always right”, everytime our baddy shouts at someone to show you he’s the baddy. I tell you something, you’ll be admitted to hospital for alcohol poisoning!
I Love Disaster Movies! 
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